The Self-Taught Artists of Te Aroha

“Outsider Art”, a debatable yet common term to describe self-taught artists who have not attended art school or studied to be artists. New Zealand is full of self-taught artists, like Te Aroha residents Adrian Worsley and Julia O’Sullivan, with a passion for creating art. Whether they were born with the creative gift or they taught themselves, it is something to be admired by those with an eye for uniqueness. Stuart Shepherd, a New Zealand artist and teacher, who conducted a survey surrounding self-taught artists and visionary art answered some questions about self-taught art. For an insight into self-taught art, refer to the infographic below.

Adrian Worsley Art

In the small town with a large mountain, Te Aroha, is where one of the many kiwi self-taught artists, Adrian Worsley, creates. He is a sculptural artist and what sets him apart from the others is his method of artistry, recycling scrap metals, mainly steel, and turning them into beautiful pieces of art. From a giant bull to mystical dragons to rustic motorcycles, Adrian’s done it all.

Using items like old nuts and bolts, car parts, gardening tools, practically anything that can melt, Adrian welds them into shapes, morphing them into sculptures. What started as a hobby led Adrian to open his own gallery on Rewi street in Te Aroha, situated right next door to his workshop.

When it comes to the creative process, Adrian explained his four stages of creating- the procrastination stage or fearing that he can’t do it, the “all go” stage, the suddenly thinking “am I on the right track?” stage and finally the confidence stage.

An interesting aspect of Adrian’s career is that because he has had to collect scrap metals and materials for his pieces, which would normally take up a lot of room and look a bit like a junkyard. Adrian’s eye for potential art has led him to create a maze of organised and categorised materials, almost like a filing system for sculptural artists. The way he has decorated his workshop and gallery tastefully with these materials clearly demonstrates his personality and artistic flair, he is passionate about what he creates and enjoys the process.

Jupigio

Julia O’Sullivan, another artist currently living in Te Aroha, creates beautiful, dystopic and contrasting pieces. Originally from the UK, Julia left her job as a beer analysis and moved to New Zealand to look after her family as a stay-at-home mother. Julia says she had always been a drawer, but it wasn’t until she moved here that she found she had more time to work on her art and focus on building her career.

Julia, in fact, did enrol in college in the UK and spent around two months there, but decided it was not the course for her. Now, looking back Julia realises that art school is much more about networking opportunities than actually teaching artistic gifts and networking in the art realm is important, as she explains.

“I did it for me” Julia explained when discussing her career development. She found the process of creating therapeutic, a way to release stress, tension and problems in her personal life in a productive way. She gets her inspiration from historic buildings, castles and stories which she showcases in her artwork and she likes the contrast of light and dark which she develops in her work. When Julia creates, she puts purpose into her artwork and wants to make people think and unravel the hidden messages behind her paintings, like a puzzle or an elaborate illustration, as she puts it.

Her pieces are emotional and personal, for example, her piece ‘Seven Year Itch’, a series of seven paintings reflecting the seven stages of marriage and her piece ‘Seven Heads’ a series of sculptures representing seven different types of mental illnesses, which ultimately stemmed from her living with someone battling depression, along with other personal experiences with people close to her suffering from mental illness. Painting the heads helped her unravel and harbour the emotions she felt during this period of her life.

When discussing the idea of outsider art/ self-taught art, Julia was very insightful. She explained her belief that every artist is self-taught and that true artistic talent, imagination and vision cannot be taught. She refers to the art world as “a tree with many branches” or “a soup of creatives”.

Julia is now planning on moving her family back to the UK. She knows the importance of understanding your demographic as an artist and believes her art will be most appreciated in Europe, where old-style artwork and techniques are commonly admired and sought after.

Overall her art represents her journey of self-awareness. Julia enjoys creating her artwork, she paints for her and falls in love with the process of every piece she creates, whether it sells in the end or not.

New Zealand is a host to some amazing self-taught creatives, like Adrian and Julia. An insight into the art realm and artistry in New Zealand has been insightful, to say the least. The creativity and uniqueness in our country are deserving of appreciation and is something to showcase and be proud of, self-taught or not.